Category: politics (Page 29 of 42)

Western Australian Senate Election 2014

March 28, 2014 / Catherine / 2 Comments

Normally, I wouldn’t cover an election I can’t vote in. This is not because I don’t love my interstate friends as much as my local ones, it’s a simple matter of time. With so many political parties to read about at every election, and so many policies for each party (I must confess to a sneaking appreciation for single-issue parties – so quick to read and write about!), there just isn’t time to cover everyone else’s elections, too. Arguably, between full-time work, part-time study, and far more time-consuming hobbies than any sane person should have, there isn’t time to cover my own elections.

However, this election is a bit special. For one thing, it’s essentially the sequel to the 2013 Election (Senate Election Part 2: Attack of the Drones). Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is, in fact, a continuation of the same event. The extra, final chapter that the author directed to be read only three years after her death. The Secret of Hanging Parliament, as it were. And boy, am I betraying my age as a child of the 80s…

The other interesting thing about this election, of course, is that because it’s part of the Federal Election, its results are going to effect everyone in Australia in a way that your standard election interstate would never do. Which is kind of fascinating and appalling. You have the power, my Western friends. Use it wisely! And to make it more fun, the Western Australian electorate gets to vote after they’ve already seen what the new government is doing. There is a sort of surreal aptness to this. I’ve heard friends from WA complain about the fact that, due to timezone differences, they can still be casting their ballots at a point when votes from the Eastern States have already decided the election.

Well, Western Australia, here’s where you get your own back! We Easterners may have thought that we had decided the election, but it turns out that you get the final say after all. And maybe, just maybe, you will change the entire face of politics in Australia for the next three years. Which is a pretty cool superpower to have, really.

Anyway, in honour of this unique situation, I am going to undertake a more modest version of my usual tiny party policy-reading madness. Looking at the Western Australian ballot, I can see thirty-three groups, plus two un-grouped Independents. Most of these parties, of course, contested the Federal Senate Election last year, and had representatives in Victoria. Given that it’s only been about six months, I’m not going to analyse all these parties again. I can’t – I’m in the final throes of rehearsal for a big concert next weekend and will be out rehearsing virtually every night next week.

Instead, I will list all the parties who contested the last election below, with links to my commentaries on them, and will write new posts about the six parties and two independents that were not on the Victorian Senate ticket last year (new parties bolded). If I have time, I will try to go back and quickly analyse group voting tickets for this election, to see if anything has changed, but honestly, I think that’s pretty unlikely to happen. Not enough hours in the day.

Good luck, Western Australians – read up on your exciting smorgasbord of political parties, and use your vote wisely! Australia is watching you…

Fasting for a cause?

February 20, 2014 / Catherine / 0 Comments

I’ve been thinking more about what sort of action might help the asylum situation. I can see lots of petitions and marches and letters to politicians, and I think these are necessary and strike at the root of the matter, which is our horrible policies. But I also think that any action that comes from these is going to be slow, and that people are likely to fall through the cracks in the meantime.

So I’m wondering about organising a fundraiser for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, or a similar organisation, which helps the people who are already in this awful system.

One thing that occurred to me, having grown up with friends doing the 40 Hour Famine, was something like a sponsored 24-hour hunger strike. This appeals to me, because it is both practical (hopefully) as a fundraiser, but also allows those of us who are less comfortable with political rallies – or less able to attend them – or less good at writing letters – to sit, in some way, in solidarity with asylum seekers, a number of whom have conducted hunger strikes to protest their own treatment.

I can’t tell whether this is a good idea or a terrible one. Is it good symbolism, or deeply inappropriate? Or worse, is it something that might displace better or more practical ways of either helping or expressing solidarity? Feedback from people more knowledgeable than me about political action – and fundraisers – and everything, really, because this is far from my area of expertise – would be very welcome.

Thinking aloud about asylum seekers

February 19, 2014 / Catherine / 5 Comments

I’ve been trying to write a letter to my senators about what is happening to – what we as a country are doing to – asylum seekers, but I keep getting stuck. Usually, this is the sort of thing that would inspire reams of text from me, but tonight, I find it impossible to finish a sentence. Or a useful one, at any rate. I’m hoping that this post, in addition to being self-indulgent navel-gazing, might help me sort some of my thoughts out, and make it possible for me to write something coherent.

Or if not, perhaps it will strike a chord with someone else.

Our New Senate

September 8, 2013 / Catherine / 9 Comments

This is obviously not set in stone yet, but putting together what the ABC website is predicting with the list of current senators who will be staying around until 2017, and always assuming that I’m adding everything up correctly, the picture looks like this:

33 Coalition

25 Labor

10 Green

2 Palmer

1 Democratic Labor Party

1 Family First

1 Liberal Democratic Party (oh, NSW, what were you thinking?)

1 Australian Motor Enthusiasts Party (oh, Victoria…)

1 Australian Sports Party (this would be WA’s contribution to the madness)

1 Independent (Nick Xenophon of South Australia, possibly the only state that hasn’t gone off its head this time around)

Good grief.

I need to take a few days off from politics, on the grounds that I do actually have a life outside this blog (even if I have forgotten what it is), but I’ll be back once the Senate is settled to take a closer look at the newer, madder parties joining us in the Senate.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, if you can…

Polling Day in Moreland

September 7, 2013 / Catherine / 11 Comments

So the election seems to have been called for the Coalition, though to be fair, they’ve been calling it since 10:00 am, which is ridiculous.

I’m not going to speculate on the awfulness of Abbott, and it’s too early to get into any really interesting conversations about the Senate. Instead, I thought it might be fun to give you a day in the life of the sort of person who likes to keep herself busy on polling day…

My husband, in fact, is keeping himself even busier this year. He’s working for the AEC, assisting with pre-polling and postal votes, and this evening, he is one of the people counting votes over in the Gellibrand electorate.

I stuck to Moreland, my home electorate, where I’ve been helping out the Greens, on the grounds that they are my preferred option of the three parties that have a reasonable chance of winning seats in the Lower House (I am, perhaps, being a little optimistic, but it looks like Bandt is going to hold his seat, so I’m clearly not entirely beyond the bounds of sense).

Vote Early, Vote Often, but above all, Vote

September 6, 2013 / Catherine / 13 Comments

By tomorrow evening, we will hopefully have at least some idea what our new government will look like.

Or not. I started a post this way three years ago, and look what happened then.

Myself, I’m hoping it won’t look like Tony Abbott gets control of both houses of Parliament, and in my ideal world, he wouldn’t get either of them. Ideally, I’m hoping that the Senate will maintain a distinct greenish tinge (though not the kind one gets from contemplating the prospect of the Mad Monk as PM). There are many things we cannot afford as a country, and a PM who doesn’t think that science is real is one of them.

But all that is in the future. Between now and then, if you are Australian, there’s something quite important you should be doing.

Please, vote.

My personal How to Vote Card…

September 5, 2013 / Catherine / 27 Comments

Just for fun, and since I’m making notes for myself anyway, I thought I’d share with you my own How To Vote Card, and the process I’ve used to get there. Feel free to ignore it. But before I hide all my musings behind a cut, here, just for fun, are three other takes on the Senate Ticket for Victoria:

Humble Wonderful has provided a two-part ‘Biased Guide to the Victorian Senate Election’. Very funny, very incisive, and much more concise than mine! Part One / Part Two

Scott Lewis has a whole series of YouTube video posts on the different tiny parties, including a bunch that aren’t running candidates in Victoria. They are good fun and informative, and much less biased than mine, and they also have silly musical intros. What’s not to like?

Daniel Elkington, who actually lives in the same electorate as me, has written his own how to vote card. This is a particularly interesting one for me to read, because Daniel and I agree on the environment and refugees, but disagree on religion and abortion. The similarities between our tickets are as interesting as the disagreements, if not more so.

And here, without further ado, is the officially endorsed Cate Speaks how to vote card!

(nobody in their right mind would endorse this card, but that still lets me out…)

How to vote (below the line…)

September 4, 2013 / Catherine / 19 Comments

Having written up 39 political parties or groups, plus two ungrouped independents in the space of about two weeks, I’m finding that while I have all the information in theory, it’s really hard to remember, in practice, what half of those parties are. It’s certainly beyond my powers to hold all 97 candidates in my head well enough to order them as conscientiously as I would like.

On the principle that I may not be the only person having this difficulty, here’s my plan for ordering my ballot:

1. Figure out what my core policies are.

2. Read through my party summaries again, because I honestly have no memory of writing some of them. It’s been an interesting fortnight.

3. Give every party a ranking from 1 – 5:

This is the sort of party I’d put first on my ballot, if only my ballot were not the size of my bedroom. I’m actually both surprised and pleased to have so many 1 rankings this time around. Really tiny parties and independents have a higher chance of ending up here, just because they are unlikely to go far, so they might as well get my $2.488 for a first preference, knowing that their votes will flow on nicely to another party and maybe stop there.
This is the sort of party that may not fulfil my wildest fantasies of what a political party should entail, but is a good, solid party that deserves my vote.
Don’t care either way. Or, alternatively, the sort of party that I’m not going to vote for myself, but wouldn’t mind seeing getting up in Queensland… (sorry Queenslanders – I’m not really picking on you, but you do seem to be the birthplace of all our very best crazy parties)
Somewhat awful but probably will not reduce the country to a burning pile of rubble within the next three years.
Oh God, no.

This should divide my ticket up into far more manageable chunks. I can then move on to the next step, which is:

4. Ordering the parties within each category. And, if I’m feeling evil, ordering the candidates within each party. I like putting female candidates ahead of male candidates, just because. After all, the AEC vote counters are going to find my ticket wildly annoying anyway, so I might as well.

5. Pop across to belowtheline.org.au to make myself a how to vote card.

That’s the best I can do. Does anyone have a better idea about how to manage this ballot?

(other than voting above the line, of course)

Victorian Senate Ungrouped Independent: Darrell Scott Morrison

September 3, 2013 / Catherine / 7 Comments

Oh frabjous day, calloo, callay, I have reached the last person on the senate ballot paper! After this, of course, I will then need to go back and actually read what I have written in order to figure out who I’m voting for. It’s all been a bit of a blur recently.

Darrell Scott Morrison is another un-grouped independent, originally from Portland. He gives us his mobile phone number *and* his date and time of birth, which is perhaps a bit more sharing than is necessary, but I do appreciate his enthusiasm. Something about his website feels very enthusiastic indeed…

Victorian Senate Ungrouped Independent: Lyn Gunter

September 3, 2013 / Catherine / 3 Comments

At the extreme right-hand edge of the table cloth that we like to pretend is the Victorian Senate ballot paper, we find two un-grouped Independent candidates, Lyn Gunter and Darrell Scott Morrison. Since each of them has been polite enough to create an actual website for me to look at, they will get one post each, starting with Lyn Gunter, a JP from Flowerdale and the former Murrindindi Shire Mayor.

I used to work with someone who needed everyone to know that she was a JP, so I’m cringing a little in anticipation, but I shall endeavour to set unfortunate memories aside and give Lyn a fair go. Because that’s the Australian way! Oh dear Lord, I have read *far too many political websites*.